"Fight the good fight of faith" is a phrase I found recently while reading the New Testament. It has a lot of meaning for me in many facets of my personal life, but lately I've been chanting it over and over to myself while sitting down to write.
I've never not won NaNoWriMo (I am very stubborn, what can I say), but this year I've come closer to giving up than I ever have. I thought that with so many books under my belt, drafting this novel would be a piece of cake. Well, it hasn't been, to say the least. Some days I fly through my 1,667 words, but most days it's a slog.
Maybe it's because I'm presently querying last year's NaNo project. One night I paused in writing to update my word count, and took a break to check my query inbox. There was yet another form rejection letter waiting for me. It made writing very difficult that night, unsurprisingly. On the flip side, I've also gotten three full requests this month. Those made for easier writing nights. Although then there's the stress of wondering when I'm going to hear back from those agents. No wonder I find myself constantly on edge! Writing is a hard business to be in no matter how it's going.
When I tell myself to fight the good fight of faith while I write, it's a reminder that no matter how awful I think this first draft is, I need to keep going. I need to have faith in myself that I can take a rough first draft and edit and polish it until it's something I'm proud of. I need to have faith that there will be a payoff from all of this someday. I need to have faith that doing something I enjoy isn't a waste of time, even if there isn't a payoff in the form of being a published author.
As the immortal philosopher Steve Perry once said, "Don't stop believin'."
Please keep writing, my friends. Fight that good fight. Have faith.
Three fulls in a month is outstanding! As another immortal philosopher said, "Keep on keepin' on!"
ReplyDeleteGreat reminder! I'm nearly done w/my first draft, which should inspire me to keep going, but then I think of all the work that still needs to be done, and I just want to run away from it. =/
ReplyDeleteReading your post got me to thinking that as that verse can apply to your writing, your writing can apply to other areas of life as well. Writing takes creatvity, perserverance, endurance, humility, and courage to name a few, all of which can better your life in countless ways. So there's so much on top of enjoyment to get out of writing without ever being published! And anyway, I'm betting you will be.
ReplyDeleteAmen! Nothing good comes easy! (I embroidered that on a pillow decades ago to help me quit smoking.) The publishing business is all about perseverance!
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